There's a saying - "It is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt." Regrettably, I've never been able to keep my mouth shut. I've just got to voice my opinion, and now, for those formerly fortunate enough to be out of earshot, my thoughts can travel through the ether to display screens far and wide.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Another FALSE chain email that frequently goes around.

Yesterday afternoon I received the bogus email about Ollie North & Al Gore. Furious, I researched the email, found the truth about it, and posted the absolute falseness of it.

At the bottom of that email, was another little morsel I've received several times before. This story describes some Palestinian terrorist that was captured by the Israelis for blowing up a bus. The story explains that Clinton and his administration pressured Israel into releasing this prisoner, over Israel's objections. Later, the same terrorist was one of the 9/11 hijackers.

This is yet another email story that seems to suggest that people opposing the current occupants of the White House and their policies are foolish and blind to reality.

Unfortunately for the people trying to pass this story off, IT IS ALSO FALSE.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/atta.aspThe two terrorists were two different people. The bus bomber Atta was a different person than the hijacker Atta. The bus bomber was not captured by the Israelis. Rather, he was captured by the FBI, and extradited to Israel for prosecution of the bus bombing he was involved in. And later, according to the Jerusalem Post, he was released due to "faults in the extradition process".This misinformation is harmful. Fact-checking this stuff, in the age of the internet, Google, and Snopes.com, is embarassingly easy.

Before anybody forwards any emails of this nature to others, we should all at least make a little effort to confirm the truth of the message.